Update on Ursa

Now that 2 weeks have gone by since Winter Storm Ursa I thought I'd update.

The Polaris Ranger
The Polaris Ranger XP 900 snapped 2 belts and destroyed the secondary clutch.  My dilemma was whether to spend $400 for an updated and vastly improved aftermarket secondary or $1200  for a complete Duraclutch replacement. After some agonizing and talking to a guy who sells them, I decided to go with the Duraclutch. I'd been eyeballing them before this failure so this wasn't a fresh decision, but $1200 is still a lot of money.  Here's their promo video:

The clutch came in and installation went well, thanks to the clutch puller I'd ordered with the kit.  I snapped everything together and drove around the yard a little bit.  There was a lot of noise at idle which went away as soon as I gave it some gas. Something was obviously rubbing.  I started to just let things "break in", but no.... it kept nagging at me, so back up on the lift stands it went. I found that the rear edge of the housing was rubbing ever so slightly on the belt. When it gets power, the belt pulls into the secondary clutch (you can see this happen in the video) and clearance is then fine.

Belt rubs at lower right

How to get clearance at idle?  There are no adjustments visible on the housing. Just to see if the clutch housing might move a little, I grabbed my rubber mallet and gave the top of the housing some taps.  It didn't budge but guess what DID happen?  A bunch of broken belt pieces fell out of the clutch exhaust housing. You see, the clutch and belt need airflow to keep things cool There's an intake under the seat- and this is how water gets in to places it's not supposed to go- and an exhaust port that comes up over the top of the engine. It was up this exhaust that the broken belt pieces went, some of them going all the way through and falling out on the engine.

THIS explains why I was finding pieces of broken belt all over the place, why the broken belt smoke was so prevalent in the cab, and this may be why the second belt failed so quickly.  I didn't know that pieces could get up there, didn't clean out the exhaust, was in a hurry trying to get it running so I could use it during storm clean-up, and pieces probably fell out from there onto the spinning 2nd belt, causing catastrophic failure. Thank goodness I listened to the nagging voice in my head and checked this or I might've caused failure in the $1200 Duraclutch, too.

I removed the entire exhaust boot and cleaned it out, buttoned everything up, and felt a bit better about the situation. It still makes noise at idle, although not quite as much and I'm going to pop that clutch cover off once a week or so to look at things until I'm satisfied that it's going to be okay.

The Yamaha Grizzly

During the Blizzard, we checked the valves on the 2002 Grizzly 660 and found the intake to be a little tight. I'd had issues with hard starting- meaning, "physically hard starting" not "easy to turn over but just not starting" hard starting. The bike didn't idle very well until warm and smoked on start-up only. After adjusting the valves and putting in a new battery, the Griz starts immediately, doesn't smoke nearly as much, and idles much better.  It _seems_ smoother.  Might be my imagination, but I'll take it.

The Cattle On The Rocks

After the storm, we found 11 cattle stuck on a cliff.  Here's that picture again, just to remind you:

11 cattle are stuck here

My decision was to leave them be and see what might happen. We went back again and again to check on them and two weeks later, all the cattle have worked their way off the rocks to the surrounding vegetation.  There is one dead on the cliff, but she was dead when we first investigated.

In this pasture, my count is coming up just 3-4 short which is not bad considering that I'm sometimes counting a group of 150+ shifting, moving, fidgeting cattle and could easily miscount.

The Hurting Knee

During the clean up, my left knee was really hurting. It was stiff and wouldn't bend and any kind of shock- like jumping off the pickup- shot shooting pain thru it. When we were climbing around on the rocks checking out the trapped cattle, I could barely move. I'd try to bend my knee and it just wouldn't bend or it would really, really hurt to do so. The knee suddenly and dramatically cleared up on Thurs and all was well...until Sunday, when my ankle started hurting. I have trouble with pseudogout and now I'm thinking that my painful knees might actually be pseudogout manifesting itself there. I'm definitely going to pay attention to see if knee pain precedes foot/ankle pain.  Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to do about pseudogout- it's actually worse than regular gout in that regards as there's not a food trigger. The manifestation is slower to show, lasts longer, and moves around. It will frequently move from my ankle to foot to toe and back in the course of an attack. On the upside, ibuprofen is fairly effective at reducing the pain.  Nearly 2 weeks later, my foot's almost normal.  Hoping it stays that way for awhile.

The Case 90XT Skid Steer

Prior to the blizzard, I'd managed to get water in the hydraulic system of the skid steer.  I was adding some fluid from a bucket that had sitting outside (under cover, but still outside) and after a little oil poured and I was nearing the bottom of the bucket, it suddenly changed to milky and then clear. I was slow to react- having never had this issue before- and then I realized that I was pouring water into the oil. Arghhh......  All would've been fine had I had time to decide what to do, but no.... we needed the skid steer and needed it now.  So, I ran it. During the 1st phase of the clean-up, things started squeaking and creaking, and I shut the machine down.  Water will sink to the bottom, so after letting the skid steer sit overnight we got a long hose and siphoned some oil/water off the bottom of the oil pan, refilling that amount (about 2 gallons) with fresh oil.

I investigated and finally found the oil drain plug. You'd think this would be easy to find, but skid steer manuals- and I have the $300 official shop manual- aren't really particularly helpful.  By this time the Case had been sitting for a week and when I drained the pan (which wasn't that hard after I bought the required massive Allen socket), a good deal of milky white stuff came out, followed by clear oil.  I drained 7 gallons (it holds 15) from the pan, and replaced it with 1 gallon along with a bottle of Sea Foam cleaners. Let that sit, then drove the trailered skid steer around the yard to slosh things around a bit.  Drained that and again, a little milky stuff followed by clear oil. Repeat.

I then decided that I should probably replace the hydraulic filter, too. Back to my trusty manual!  Where IS the filter?  Here's the illustration they provide:

Golly!  That is SO helpful!  Where IS this thing and HOW do you get to it?  Finally, I figured that I'd probably have to pull the cab forward.  So, we did that, using a couple of come-alongs to hold things down. I don't know if you've ever worked on skid steers, but there's a bunch of heavy stuff on them that if it falls, it's going to cut your head off.  Literally.  We got everything strapped down and ta-da!!! There's the filter!  Now to get one. Local parts place, amazingly, has one.  Cost is $55. This is not your average oil filter.  It's also not that easy to get out, but get it out I did. And from the old filter, ran a little bit of milky oil, then clear.  From the filter orifice ran more oil, this bunch clear from the get-go.  All in all, we've probably got 8 gallons out of of 15 drained and, yup, it took right around 8 gallons to fill it all back up.

We ran the machine for about an hour doing some general stuff and everything seemed good. Time will tell and I might periodically drain a gallon or so from the pan to see if it runs clear or contaminated.  If there's any money left this fall, I might have it flushed and changed by someone who knows that they're doing. That's a big "if".

The Grass

For us, the whole point of "moisture", of course, is to grow grass for cattle to eat.  Fat cattle = good sales prices = money in the bank = money to pay taxes, equipment breakdowns, dead wells, etc. = we might survive another year. I'm happy to report that Spring Storm Ursa did, indeed, leave some great moisture.  Plus, we've had rain twice since then along with a few sunny days (also essential for grass production).  Bottom line is a booming grass crop, possibly the best I've seen in 22 years of doing this.

But, it's not even summer yet and it's going to be a long summer so there's no use counting chickens until they've been hatched and taken to market and you've got the check in hand. Plenty of time for counting when the dealing's done.

Until next time.

The Blizzard of Spring 2017

What a week it's been. We've just come through one of the worst snowstorms I've seen. The storm of Dec 2006 was worse in that it lasted for 3 solid days, but that was in December and you sort of expect snowstorms in December.  April 29?  Not so much.  Here's how it played out.

Friday:
The weather forecast first called for this:

 Then it changed to this:

What was most worrying was the wind forecast.  Snow and 30 mph winds are a bad mix. Especially in April.  Did I mention that it was April?  And not December or January? We're all acclimated and prepared for semi-warm weather, not Arctic Blast.  Friday afternoon I headed out to find my cattle and see what they were doing. The cattle in the East and West Cedar Creeks had been there for a month and weathered some smaller storms.  They knew where to go, but even so, I used the feed truck to drop a lot of feed near shelter to try to encourage them to stay there.  The cattle in the East pasture, on the other hand, had only been here for a week, did not know the pasture well, and were not trained to feed. I did what I could and then hunkered down.

Saturday:
The weather forecast held and I awoke to a blizzard.  It snowed hard throughout the day with high winds. Visibility was near zero.  I tried to go out and check on things and couldn't see the road or the gate to leave the compound.  I decided that leaving was not such a good idea. I checked on the cow/calves and horses in our backyard pasture and most of them were packed in under the shed which was probably the safest place for them to be. There was nothing much I could do besides that. We had 4 new calves and I figured it would be a miracle if any of them survived the storm.

Looking out the side door

I cracked the door open and took this shot

On my way back to the house

Sunday: (from here reports are as  I wrote them... present tense).
As soon as I could, I got out for a look-see. Amazingly, at least 1 of the 4 calves born before the storm was alive. We did not see the other 3 but at least 1 new calf seemed to have been born in the shed where the cows took shelter and they look good. I drove around in the Polaris Ranger and did not see any other older calves but here's hoping they somehow made it. The creek is FULL of snow with drifts that are at least 10' deep in places.

I could only make it to one pasture and those cattle looked good but they're the ones with the creek with the trees. We're getting coffee and food and heading back out to the check the other pastures and do what we can do. Travel is extremely difficult- D2 is in the Ranger so in case I get the truck stuck we'll have a way to get home.Neighbor's cattle are all over the road, in my pasture, everywhere. There's at least 6 dead piled up in a corner and I'm sure there'll be a lot more found.

The wind's still going 30 mph but at least it's not snowing more and so we do have some occasional sun and decent visibility. I've seen worse storms, but this is the worst I've seen this late in the year.

The hawk house.  Glad I brought the birds in.

Sunday morning

The first live calf I saw, and this was the youngest, too.

Snow in the creek bed

Driving down the road

Feeding survivors

After the morning's expedition, D2 and I headed back out to check the other two pastures. I expected them to be worse and they were. We found piles of dead cattle- I stopped counting at 50 and I can't count those piled up underneath the drifts.

When we went to the 3rd pasture, things got even worse. A neighbor's cattle had pushed thru our fence and I have probably 150 of his cattle on me. Again, at least 50 of those were dead. Dead cattle just everywhere across the prairie. I didn't see any of my cattle dead but there were a bunch of cattle in our "Big Canyon" and getting any kind of head count was impossible.

Then, while heading back from the far southeast corner, my Ranger started smoking and within a mile, POW!!!!, big cloud of rubber-smelling smoke. I am hoping it's just a drive belt- Polaris is notorious for blowing those. D2 towed me back to the road with his Yamaha Grizzly and then we went for the Chevy to pull the Ranger the rest of the way home to reduce stress on the Grizzly. We got to the Ranger fine but then got the Chevy stuck trying to make the turn from the pasture to the road. In the process of trying to pull the Chevy out with the Grizzly, I flipped over the bar and smacked my face on the rack, giving me a big fat upper lip and a couple of cuts. Didn't seem to knock any teeth loose, fortunately.

A typical dead yearling

This turned out to be 35 dead cattle

Towing the dead Ranger home

Back at the house, we decided to go look for the 1 known missing calf now that the snow was melting fast. No luck, but as we came over a rise, I spotted a cow calving. We rode over to check and found the calf still-born and the cow with a prolapsed uterus. Called a neighbor for help and managed to get the uterus back in. Whether the cow will live, I don't know. So far, we've lost half our personal calf crop. I'm guessing we lost 50-75 yearlings, my neighbors lost that many on me, and that's just the immediate loss. No telling how many will die from post-storm stress.

Tomorrow's job is to see if I can fix the Ranger (I have an extra belt), start trying to get a headcount on live/dead, and start moving cattle back to their correct pasture. We've got fences to fix too. Everyone's in the same boat. My neighbor to the north had cattle walking the highway as well as 100+ in our backyard pasture. He's got at least 20 dead that I saw. Neighbor to the east has 150+ on me and at least 50 dead- sometimes all I saw were hooves sticking out of 15' deep snowdrifts. And so on.

The moisture is fantastic, but it came at a high cost.

Monday:
We worked on the Ranger in the morning. As I suspected/hoped, the problem was a broken belt. I had a brand-new belt on the wall ($175 for these things...) so I cleaned the clutch and popped the new belt on. All's well, right? Well, no. I ran an order of my new T-shirts to the mailbox and on the way back, POW!!!, Black Smoke!!!. Dead again. I just parked the Ranger, grabbed my tried-true, trusty-crusty 2002 Grizzly, and we started counting cattle in the East pasture (5,000 acres).

Just as Sunday's triage showed, we found lots of my neighbor's cattle- about 100 of them alive and over 50 dead. I didn't find any dead of our cattle but came up 30 short on the count. They're either in my south neighbor's pasture or they're in The Big Canyon. The Big Canyon is a deep, steep, rough canyon where cattle rarely venture. In fact, I rarely see _anything_ in there. Any deer or elk in the bottom is trapped with no side exit as the sides are too steep and rocky to get up. It's cat country and my mother and some of her guests once jumped a mountain lion out of it, something of which I'm kind of jealous since I've never seen a lion myself and want to. Anyway.... The Big Canyon is full of big boulders and it's hard to walk in. There's cattle in there. Dead or alive, I don't know yet.

About 1/2 way thru the East pasture, my Grizzly started pulling hard so I checked it out and.... flat tire. I haven't had a flat tire in years so of course today would be the day. I left D2 to finish checking the pasture while I rode side-saddle back to the house for repairs. I was still working on it (turned out to be a bead leak) when he arrived with only an additional 5 head counted, leaving us 30 short.
After some thinking and research, I pulled the Ranger apart again and found a much more serious problem than just a broken belt- the secondary clutch is destroyed. Trying to decide now whether to go with the $400 EBR replacement clutch or the full blown $1200 Duraclutch. Either way, it's a hassle and it's going to be awhile before I trust the Ranger to be reliable.

On the upside, 2 more of Derek's cows calved yesterday which leaves us with just one to go. Plus, northern neighbors driving their cattle home from 10 miles down the road, came thru and we sorted out about 50 of theirs from my backyard calving pasture (300 acres) and put them all thru the gate. That was an unexpected bonus and now the calving pasture is clean. On the downside, the cow that had the stillborn and prolapsed uterus is not doing good. I will be amazed if she survived the night. But then I said it would be a miracle if any of the calves survived the storm and it looks like 3 out of 4 did. So, maybe I'll be amazed again.

My friend Heather's friend John came down from Denver with a horse and his own Yamaha Grizzly to help us out.  He arrived in the evening just as we were finishing up sorting out neighbor's cattle from the north and putting them back.  We all got acquainted and situated and ready for the next day.

This is shredded Ranger belt #2.

Here we have a completely destroyed secondary clutch

Tuesday:
The cattle owners came and did a count for us in the West and East Cedar Creek pastures (5,000 acres each), while we started sorting out the East pasture. The counts came out pretty good in the Cedar Creeks with just 5 dead but about 30 short in the East. John and Derek and I sorted 60 head out and returned them to their pasture in the morning, putting 30-40 miles on each of our ATV's. While the owners looked through the East for themselves, we all loaded up gear and went to fix a fence on the highway where someone had flown off a curve and through the fence. With that done, we all met back at the house to the news that the owners had found 11 head of cattle stranded on a rock slide. John and Derek went for a look-see while I stayed back to work on my Grizzly which was beginning to have trouble starting. After everyone's return, we decided to leave the cattle alone overnight to see if they'd work their way off the slope on their own. The snow was melting fast and that might open up some routes for them.

Cattle were stuck on this rock slide

John checks out a heifer.  We were able to push her out
of slide area to vegetation.

This one was high centered on a boulder.

This one is just stuck on a ledge with a drop-off on all sides

Wednesday:

Derek went to check on the cliff cattle first thing this morning while John and I worked on my Grizzly. He  reported back with the good news that 6 had indeed found their way to the bottom, leaving 5 stuck on the slope.

After fixing the Grizzly- the battery was the problem but we checked and adjusted valves, too- we all motored out to check out the situation. We ended up getting one yearling unstuck from a bush where she was totally hung up. That didn't get her off the rocks, but it did get her access to some snow where she'll get moisture. We managed to push/drive 2 more head thru the rocks to the edges and they'll make their way to the bottom before long. The other 3, however, are just absolutely stuck. They either panic or they try to fight, neither of which is a good thing. One needs to go down and wants to go up, the other needs to go up and will only go down. The third is just stuck between big boulders and a 10' sheer rock wall. So, again, my suggestion was to just leave them and see if they'll move on their own. Shy of them moving on their own or a helicopter, I don't know if it's possible to get them out of the rocks. These are 500-600 lb cattle. Can't just throw them on your shoulder and walk out.

We rode around a bit more and found 15-20 hemmed in by snowdrifts and a cliff, but they have grass and water, so they'll be okay until the snow melts. There's a yearling stuck in a snowdrift but she's on her feet and has water so the best thing to do is just let the snow melt.

With that, the most pressing things were more or less under control. John headed home in the afternoon.  He was a tremendous help and cut our workload in half.

My knees hurt, my eyes hurt, I'm tired. Gonna lay these weary ol' bones down for a bit.

Thursday:
Spent the morning catching up on some maintenence and then buried cattle from 11 am to 6 pm. We started off with a borrowed backhoe but I quickly switched to my Case 90XT skid steer. I dug and dug and dug and dug and then pushed and pushed and pushed and covered and covered and covered. Then moved on to the next spot. I started having trouble with the Case and quit to keep it from getting worse.  About a month ago, I added some hydraulic fluid and much to my horror discovered that water had gotten into the container. I added about 2 cups of pure water to the system and that's contaminated the oil. After getting good and warm, this bad oil was making various pumps and lift squeak badly and lose power, so I quit a little early to keep from ruining something.All in all, we buried 45 head today and have about that number to go tomorrow.

My knees still hurt.

Dead cattle- 15 here plus a raven.

35 dead in this corner

The funeral was well-attended

The pit

Friday:

We started the morning by using a hand suction pump to pull hydraulic oil out of the skid steer.  Water sinks in oil and my reasoning was that by sucking from the bottom of the pan, I could eliminate some of the worst contamination.  I'd then fill back up with fresh oil. I'm using premium hydraulic fluid which is supposed to keep water in suspension while in operation but I knew it would separate out after sitting all night. Sure enough, the first couple of gallons were milky and water-laden, but as we drained more, it started looking more like oil.  I added 4 gallons of fresh oil and then we had to get to work. The move seemed to work, though, as the poor skid steer worked all day without any complaint. ASAP, though, I'll completely drain and change the oil.

I put 55 cattle in the ground this morning in two different holes. We went out and checked on the cliff bound cattle and there's only 2 left up there. One seems to have figured her way out. Another one is close- she's right at a small rock slide and can probably get over the rim. If I had 3 cowboy/rock climbers and at least 2 ropes, one of which would be an industrial tow rope hooked to a pickup truck, I think I would could pull her up right now. She might also come up on her own, which is what I'm hoping for. I'm going to give them one more day and then make a decision as to what to do. 

Friday morning's pit

Filled with 45 dead cattle

Covered up

With that, I think we're done with clean-up. This is by far the single greatest disaster I've had in 21 seasons of ranching, although a couple of other times came close. I wrote about one of these here. In another, in one of the early years, a pasture of cattle got hooked on locoweed and I was pulling 5-10 off pasture every week and putting them in lockdown. The difference is that they weren't dead and some of them were sold at salvage price. A loss, but not a total loss. We ended up pulling about 125 head from a 300 head pasture due to locoweed poisoning.

Disasters happen. But Spring Storm Ursa was the worst and was certainly the most work cleaning up afterwards.

My Worst Day Ranching (so far)

I'm sitting here on Sunday, expecting this:

and 3 loads of cattle on Monday.  It reminded me of a story I've had on my website for a long time and I thought I'd post it here, with pictures.  Here we go:

---------------------

late-May 2001

"Some days are diamonds. Some days are coal".

My wife, 3-month old son (David), and 7-year-old daughter were away in Albuquerque to evaluate him for double-hernia surgery and I was at home alone, expecting 6 semi-truck loads of cattle (96 head per truck) the next morning. That night, it rained, and rained, and rained. I love rain, but keep in mind that we live down 10 miles of dirt road and semi-trucks aren’t exactly four-wheel-drive pickups. I was up before dawn to eat a breakfast of bagel and coffee and await the incoming trucks, which can show up at any time. 

Our house is backed with a 300-acre "shipping trap", a small pasture where I can keep cattle just prior to shipping. This year, I had been off-loading incoming cattle into this pasture to keep them for a week or two to train them to the feed wagon. The better trained they are to the feed wagon, the tamer they get, and the better they ship in the fall. This year’s batch was not cooperating at all and ran from the feed-wagon, instead of running to the wagon. After I finished my bagel, I looked out at the slowly graying sky and noticed that about 300 head of cattle were piled into a corner of the trap right near the house. This is an ideal situation for training steers to feed because you can feed right in front of them and they have to cross the feed to get away. Some will smell and stop and eat, and that’s often all it takes to get the whole bunch to stop and feed. And I knew they’d be cold and hungry after a night of rain. 

"Old Blue"- no longer with us- pulling a water tank.

So, I ran outside and jumped in "Old Blue"- a 1986 Ford F250 4WD- already hooked up to the feed trailer. It was still raining, but gently. As I approached the trapped cattle, they panicked and started to run east along the fence. In this situation, you can often drive the truck right in front of them and make them stop. That’s what I did. What I didn’t count on was the slick grass of the rain-soaked pasture, and when I hit the brakes, the truck, backed with about 2,000 lbs of feed in the trailer, slid about 30 yards across the pasture. Right into the barbed wire fence. Pow!!! Barbed wire is tough, but it’s no match for a pickup truck with feed trailer and I busted thru 3 of the 4 wires. The other wire wrapped around my front wheel. Okay, so here I am with a gaping hole in the fence and 300 ill-trained, panicky steers coming straight for me. I jumped out, got the steers turned and ended up just tying the broken wire to the pickup and leaving the truck in the hole. As I walked back to the house, it was raining harder, and the wind had picked up to about 25-30 mph.

Just as I reached the house, I saw 3 of the 5 expected trucks rolling up at the main intersection, about ¼ mile from the house. The trucks usually come from the east, but these were coming from the north. Still, they had to be mine. I ran into the house and looked frantically for a rain coat, tracking mud all over the house. No luck, and I KNOW I have a great rain slicker somewhere… Finally giving up, I hooked up the portable loading chute to my other pickup and drove to the intersection. It was still raining. The brand inspector was there (all incoming cattle are inspected) and after talking about it, we decided to just unload the trucks directly into the pasture instead of taking them to the small set of pens 3 miles down the road where we normally unload. This way the trucks wouldn’t have to turn around in the pasture, but could just continue down the hard-packed caliche road back to pavement. The first 3 trucks went fine, although it was still raining at times. Then the brand inspector’s cell phone rang. Bad news.  The other 2 trucks had slid off the dirt road on a steep banked curve, back in Grenville, 10 miles away. Uh-oh.

The curve today. The banks were steeper and the road narrower in 2001

We decided that there was nothing to do but take the portable chute and unload the cattle there. Maybe we’d be able to drive 192 head of cattle into a neighbor’s nearby trap of about 7 acres until I could get some help. The brand inspector took off to check out the situation and I loaded up the chute. I wished I could also load up my ATV, but I didn’t have a loading ramp and couldn’t back up into the ditch like I normally do, because of the mud, or load it into a trailer because I was already towing the portable chute. "Well, I won’t need it", I stupidly reckoned. "And besides, it’s raining!" So, I headed north, driving about 20 miles/hour to keep the poorly designed loading chute from fishtailing back and forth as it was towed.

The portable chute, at ease (and missing one support)

At the scene, things looked ugly. The first truck had slid off the banked turn into the muddy ditch and the second truck, rather than simply wait and be patient, decided to go around the first truck.  He slid into the first truck and scraped along until he cleared it and then slid into the ditch himself. This put his rear door (where the cattle come out) almost butt-up against the nose of the first truck. It was obvious that we were going to have to move one of the trucks to unload the other. And, you don’t just yank fully loaded cattle trucks out of a muddy ditch. By this time, there were two brand-inspectors present, a county road employee, and an interested neighbor on the scene.

I managed to back the loading chute up to the first truck w/out getting stuck in the ditch myself. Remember- the ditch isn’t level! It’s banked. I could just picture the cattle tipping that chute over as they exited the truck.  The problem here is that the butt of the truck was facing north and the cattle needed to go south.  We'd have to unload them in the ditch and then turn them around to drive them south.   I drove my pickup down the road to guard it so that the unloading cattle wouldn’t hit the highway about 2 miles away. The road was fenced in on both sides, making a great "alley".  

The first 14 head exited the truck, running full-blast down the road toward me. I got 10 turned, no problem, but 4 broke past me (NOW I needed that ATV!!!) as I tried not to get stuck in the ditch. It was still raining. I got the pickup in front of them and stopped right in their path. Three of them turned and jumped the barbed wire fence into the adjacent pasture and the 4^th charged right for me! I jumped into the bed of the pickup and felt his head brush my feet! Then, he went around the truck and headed for the highway! It would be bad if he hit the road- one of the most-traveled in the state of New Mexico. 

Meanwhile, cattle are pouring off the truck, but most have joined the first 10 I got turned and are now heading south, like good cattle, bless their bovine hearts! I tore off down the road, got around the steer again, and pulled up in front of him again. He simply jumped into the small gap between the truck and fence and took off to the north! Once again, I got in front of him and this time, pushed the truck right up against the fence. The steer stopped and butted my truck tire with his head. I rolled my window down to swat him and he just about came thru the window into the truck before dodging around the truck to the rear. We were now only about ½ mile from the highway and I had to stop this steer. So, I got him lined up and hit him in the butt with the truck. He turned and charged the truck and I just let him have it, head to head! If my pickup had an airbag, it would’ve deployed, no question! He went down and I stopped the truck with him trapped under the bumper. The brand inspector drove up just then and I grabbed a rope, jumped on the steer and hog-tied his legs together, and just left him flopping around in the ditch.

Where I left the renegade steer- the highway is just over the hill

While all this was happening, the first truck was unloaded and the county brought over a bulldozer that was fortuitously parked nearby. They pulled the first truck, now unloaded and some 45,000 lbs lighter, backwards out of the ditch. I hooked up and moved the loading chute up to the second truck, again managing not to get stuck in the ditch, and we started unloading it. To hook up the loading chute, you have to lift the two side supports, pin them in place, attach a tongue with hitch, and pin it in place. Since the supports are now gone, someone either has to hold the tongue up while someone else backs the truck up, or you have to lay the tongue down and back up as close as you can, then lift the tongue up, and pull the trailer into place. It’s easy with two people, but alone, it’s not easy on dry, hard ground and downright tough in a muddy, sloppy, non-level ditch. It was still raining and I was getting kind of wet. We got the second truck unloaded w/out incident, and all the cattle turned and heading south along the alley. 

Down the "alley". Road was dirt in 2001.

A few more miles down the alley

After some discussion, I learned that another neighbor was sending two of his "south of the border" hired hands over to help out. Whew! But they wouldn’t be here for awhile, so I decided to take the loading chute back to the house, grab my ATV and try to control the nearly 200 head of cattle running down the alley until help arrived. I got the chute hooked up again and head for home. I passed the lead cattle a few miles later and saw an ugly situation developing.

As I mentioned earlier, the road was fenced in on both sides, but only for 7 of the 10 miles. You then hit a cattleguard and enter another pasture that is only fenced on 1 side for a mile, and is open on both sides for another mile, before hitting another alley. This pasture happened to be stocked with cows and calves and 2 bulls. So, not only did I need to drive my own steers thru this pasture, w/out the aid of a fence, but also I had to keep them separate from the cows and calves and bulls. The ugly situation was that the lead steers were still running full-tilt down the road and I knew that when they hit that cattleguard, they’d just jump it and keep right on going. I had approximately 30 minutes to get to the house, unhook the chute, load up my ATV in the trailer, and get myself back to the cattleguard to block the oncoming beeves. Grabbing a bite of lunch was out of the question.

The cattle guard and the end of the alley

As I crested a small hill leading down to the last couple of miles, the loading chute came unhooked from the trailer hitch. The support arms dug into the road and  in my rear view mirror I saw the chute rise almost straight up before- fortunately!!!- plunging back down to earth! My first though was "just leave it there!", but then I realized that the hill was "blind" and someone driving south was not going to see the chute until they hit it. So, back I went. The impact had bent the support arms of the trailer and I couldn’t get it hooked up to the pickup. Nor could I push it up the hill. I got my pickup out of the way (it was still raining, of course), lifted the tongue of the trailer up, and ran it downhill into the ditch and managed to drop it without getting run over myself. Back in the truck, I headed home to get my ATV and trailer. I wondered how many more times I was going to have to lift that accursed loading chute….

The chute came off just over this blind rise

At the house, the first ATV wouldn’t start. Dead battery. I got the second ATV started and rode over to the old horse trailer to carry ATV’s. Now, I've just ridden the ATV over from the garage, so that means that pickup is over at the garage. I was starting to get a little tired and figured I’d just ride the ATV into the horse trailer and then go get the pickup. None of our horse trailer jacks are long enough and you have to stick something under the jack to get the hitch high enough to hook up to a tall 4WD pickup. And I didn't have a real ATV ramp but was using some long boards as a ramp. When I hit the back of the trailer with the ATV, it put weight on the back of the trailer which caused the jack to lift off the wood I had under the jack and that let the trailer roll forward just a little which let it "get away" from the ATV. With the ATV’s weight off the back, the trailer immediately dove back down, burying the jack about 6" deep in the mud. At this point, I almost (almost!!!) cried. Oh, and it was still raining and the wind was still blowing.

There was nothing to do but drive the pickup over, get the high-lift jack out, jack up the trailer, get something underneath the trailer jack and start all over. Of course, when you jack up a trailer with a high-lift jack, it wants to twist the high-lift out from under it because you have to jack it from the side. So, I had to keep that jack from twisting out, while bent over, and push something underneath the trailer jack. Somehow I managed to do this. I tell ya, about this time, a helper would've been GREAT!!!! This time, I hooked the trailer up first (and this means you have guess where the hitch is, back up a little, jump out of the tall 4WD, check the hitch alignment, back up a little more, check again, too far….drive up, drive over, back up, check, drive back…..anyway, it took me 6 jump in/jump outs to get hooked up). Then I loaded up my ATV and headed back for the cattle.

As I crossed the cattle guard I saw a very, very welcome sight- the two Mexican helpers had arrived, one on an ATV and another on a horse and had gotten the cattle turned back from the cattleguard and bunched up with the stragglers. And the rain had stopped and the wind was dying down. I began to think that I might survive this day. I got past the Mexicans, after talking to one (who spoke English!!! My Spanish is awful), parked the truck and trailer, unloaded the ATV and went after them. Getting out of the truck onto the ATV also meant that Chance, The Wonder Dog, would be able to help. Now "all" we had to do was drive the cattle thru the open pasture, and providentially, the cows and calves and bulls had been driven by the wind and rain (and distant ATV’s) to the far side of the pasture.

The cattle were bunched up against the cattleguard, but the horse was able to gently work thru them so that the rider could open the gate and let them thru. We got ‘em strung out along the single fence, with the horse up front to keep the lead steers back and the cattle bunched up. About this time, another welcome face showed up- my mailman, having run his route and seeing the situation, brought his pickup and a horse trailer. Any lagging steer was quickly roped into the trailer and taken to my house and dropped off in the pens. This allowed us to keep the herd bunched tighter in preparation for the dash across the open pasture. If you let a string of cattle get too strung out, the herd will invariably split into two herds as the lead cattle get too far ahead and the stragglers straggle. Then you’ve got two herds to deal with instead of one. So, having the horse keep the lead runners back was invaluable. And Jimmy- God bless him!- had even managed to load the renegade steer that I’d hog-tied earlier that morning.

The end of the alley. Open pasture to the left

We hit the open pasture in good shape. The wind had slowed, the rain was almost done, with just intermittent sprinkles, and the cattle were lined out nicely, and they were moving down the road. We crossed the open pasture and the lead steer was just 200 yards from the next "alley". I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Then, over the crest of the hill came….a vehicle. Of all the rotten timing!!! He was in the road, the steers were in the road. And, instead of putting the cattle between himself and the fence, thus forcing them tight against the fence, this driver chose to drive between the single fence and the cattle. The steers peeled off the fence like backing off of sticky paper and turned out into the open pasture. When cattle "peel" like this, they don’t follow the steer in front of them, but rather the whole line turns and suddenly, instead of having a "snake" of cattle with a single head, you have 192 heads all looking east. I didn’t wave when the driver finally made his way past me, having just sent our entire herd of cattle heading east, but neither did I run my ATV into his shiny new white pickup, so I thought I did okay there. Now, not only did we now have to circle them all back up, but we also had to get them lined up with the road-wide alley entrance.

Truck came over the hill here

An hour later, we had the cattle excited, hot, tired, panicky, but headed into the alley. About 6-8 had been roped and dragged off to home. Of course, while the horse was doing this, we only had the 2 ATV’s to control the whole herd of cattle. Having just been spooked from the entrance to the alley by the truck, they were not keen about going back there, but we persevered.

Another hour after this, we were thru the second cattle guard and heading toward my gate. We only had 400 yards to go, but the cattle were exhausted, having gotten cold and wet, sustained 30 mph winds while cold and wet, and having just run 10 miles after being on a truck for 14 hours. Some of them just refused to walk any further, and a few actually dropped dead on their feet. They’d be walking along and just keel over sideways, dead. We lost 6 head (that's $700 each) in the last ¼ mile, but finally got the majority turned, thru the gate, and into the pasture. The big ugly job was done.

The gate

However, I still had to retrieve my loading chute since I had more cattle trucks coming in 2 days. And my truck and trailer were still 5 miles down the road (into a head-wind, of course). We started riding back toward the truck and trailer. The other ATV was well in front of me and I saw it pull off the road. "Out of gas", I figured. Right then, the horse and trailer drove up and the Mexicans discussed the ATV. I told them "I’ll just get my trailer and load both ATV’s up". So, I went on to my truck and loaded up my ATV. Drove back to the other ATV and the Mexicans were gone! Hey! I kind of wanted help loading the thing! Remember, I didn’t have an ATV ramp but was using boards to load the ATV in the horse trailer. I tried pushing the dead ATV into the trailer but couldn’t do it. So, I lined it up and tried pushing it with my ATV, but the front wheels would turn on the boards and it would fall off. Plus, I just couldn’t get traction on the muddy road. I tried towing it into the trailer, but again, couldn’t get traction, plus I couldn’t get the tow rope short enough- I could only get ½ the other ATV into the trailer and then it would roll back out, if the front wheels didn’t turn and knock the loading boards out of place. I was tired and getting frustrated.

I didn’t want to leave the ATV on the side of the road and only had about 30 minutes of daylight left, so I decided the easiest thing to do would be to tow the dead ATV back to the house with the live ATV. I hooked up the tow rope to the dead ATV and started off. Everything was looking fine for the first 3 miles. Then I hit a big downhill dip (just past where the loading chute had come off!) and the towed ATV gathered speed and started passing the towing ATV. At one point, the two ATV’s were head to head, and right then, then tow rope wrapped around the front axle of the towed ATV. It’s a wonder I wasn’t killed right there, as both ATV’s slid to a wet, muddy, stop a few inches from the edge of a 6’ drop over the creek. I wearily got down, unwrapped the tow rope from the axle and wheels (easier said than done), and managed to get the dead ATV back home w/out further incident. Ordinarily, I’d have just driven my spare pickup back to get the truck and trailer, and left it there until the next day, but remember, my spare truck was still buried in the fence from that morning. Plus, I had to get the loading chute out of the road because I just knew someone would plow into it in the dark. There was nothing to do but get on the ATV and ride back to the truck/trailer. Back into the wind. I was really getting cold and tired by now.

Death by ATV Dip

The sun was sinking when I finally got back to the house with the truck, trailer, and ATV. I got it unhooked and drove back for the loading chute. It was dark-thirty when I backed up to the loading chute. Remember, you have to get the truck close to the chute, then pick up the tongue and pull the chute up to the hitch. And the chute was in the muddy ditch, at an angle. I got backed up and with just about the last bit of energy I had left, lifted the chute tongue, and got it hooked up. I had to sit on the tailgate for a few seconds to recharge before I could get a sledgehammer and pound the chute’s supports up enough so that they wouldn’t drag and I could drive the chute home. I drove home pretty slow and just left the chute connected in the driveway.

I still had one more problem to deal with and that was the 500 head of cattle in the shipping trap. The trap can really only sustain 30-40 head for a summer, and the 500 head had been in there for 2 weeks already. I had more cattle coming in 2 days and I really needed to get those 500 head out. But I needed help, and my wife wouldn’t be able to help because she’d be caring for our infant son (who was returning from the hospital the next day, don’t forget). As I sat in the hallway pulling off my wet, muddy boots, the phone rang. It was a brother from church: "I was just sitting here and wondered if you needed any help tomorrow". Thank you, Lord!!!! It didn’t take me long to say "Yes. Yes I do". And with a promise of help in the form of a pickup driver, an ATV rider, and a horse, first thing in the morning, I was finally able to get a hot meal (nothing but a bagel since morning, don’t forget!), a hot bath, and bed.

The next morning, the sun was shining, the wind was calm, help arrived at 8 am, my wife and family arrived at 9 am, the cattle were moved by noon, and all was (relatively) under control again.

For awhile, anyway.
----------------------

Things would be very different if this happened today.  For one thing, I have an ATV ramp! I have 4 4WD ATV's, I have a capable helper in Derek (and Brianna could've helped, too, just a few years later), I know all my neighbors now, and I have 2 capable dogs.  But every year brings new challenges!

And now... we await Monday.

Rolling and Tumbling

Here we are again after a long hiatus from the blog. I guess that last post (Departure) took a lot out of me. It's been a busy, busy time since then. I went to Winfield KS in September for the Walnut Valley Festival and spent nearly a week there camping, picking and catching up with friends. It was a great time and I'm hoping to do it again this year, Lord willing.

Aerial view of Walnut Valley Festival- and we're not even in it!

The view from my abode.

Talking Friends

Jamming Friends

Eating Friends

Cattle shipping went well and there wasn't a lot to report there.  I wrapped things up and hit the guitar repair business full-time and full-tilt.  I suppose I did a lot of work, but at times it seemed like I was trying to run in mud; doing a lot of effort but not getting much done.   Derek and I went to the North American Falconer's Association meet in Alamosa CO during Thanksgiving week and it was COLD there.  Cold and snowy.  So much so, that we bailed out early and came home.    Except for that week and few others, our winter has been pretty mild with just a few snowstorms and days of frigid weather.  Unlike last year when the water heater and furnace both went out within a month of each other, everything held together pretty well.

Stressed out and missing homeschooling Derek, Georgia quit her teaching job in December.  She had to drive 60 mi/day to get to work and by the time we paid gas and etc, her hourly pay was about $7/hr.  It just wasn't worth having her gone from the house for 8-10 hours/day so we made the decision for her to bail.  At the same time, I investigated Subaru's trade-in sales pitch and ended up trading in our 2012 Subaru Outback with 32,000 miles (that teaching job put the miles on!) for a 2014 Outback with 0.0 miles.  It actually worked out to be a good deal and basically cost me about $3,000 to erase those 32,000 miles.  Here's hoping we put a lot less miles on this one!

Subaru Outback #3

I've been working hard at my archery.  I posted on this in an early post "I Bow Down", and taking pictures for that post helped point out some flaws in my technique.  I'm shooting 3 bows now, only 1 of which was in that old post!  I now have a 2011 Hoyt Contender (which I bought last year at this time and immediately used in State competition), a 2010 Hoyt Maxxis 35 (which was in the old post), and a 2010 Hoyt Alphamax 32 (that I got a great price and couldn't pass up).   I made all these moves in order to get adjustable cams which my old Hoyt Vectrix didn't have and I did that so that I could play with my draw length.  I found a sweet spot and my shooting has picked up.  Last year, I finished 3rd in the State and this year, having been moved to a new class ("Senior"!!!), I should win.  Derek, if you didn't know already, is defending State Champion in his class.

Falconry-wise, we had a disaster.  My prairie falcon got tangled up in her telemetry harness and ended up damaging her wing and losing 6 primary feathers and follicles.  She will never fly again.   It was really disappointing as I had high hopes for her, going into her 3rd season.  But, that's the way it goes sometimes.  It looks like I'm going to pass her on to a raptor education group and they'll use for public education.  On the upside, the kestrel we took as a chick in June has been a lot of fun.  Derek took a liking to him and after an episode in which the kestrel was lost for a day, I made the decision to not try to hunt with him.I just felt that after losing his brother, that Derek needed to not lose something, but to have some success.  Instead, we just fly him around the house and work on training techniques.  We move from room to room and the kestrel will "hunt" us down at which time we toss a tidbit for him.   We're planning to release him back into the wild in late summer and get another one, which we will try to hunt sparrows and starlings with.   I'm also hoping to take a tiercel (male) prairie falcon- a bird I've never flown.  Derek's excited about that, too. 

Now for the biggest news.  In January, Georgia was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Fortunately- we hope- it was caught early.  As I type this, she's had 2 surgeries to remove the mass and will be starting radiation or chemo therapy in a few weeks.  That will require daily treatments for about 6 weeks in Amarillo, TX.  We have several sets of friends there and she should be able to stay with them and come home on weekends.  That's been a huge challenge for us, coming not even 2 years after David's passing, but it's certainly not as bad as it could be and we've had tremendous support from friends, family, and people we haven't even met.  One friend setup a donation site and the help we've received from it has been a real and appreciated blessing.   The link:  Georgia's Cancer Fund.   To do my part, I've been paring down as much excess stuff as possible; I've sold 3 guitars and a vintage Fender amp and applied the $$$ to our expenses.  It's kind of nice trimming away the excess, actually.

Georgia's book

Out on the ranch, I've rebuilt the 2002 Yamaha Grizzly again.  I did this back at the beginning of this blog and here we are again.  Last time, 2 valve tappets came loose and I miraculously recovered them from the engine, but I think they damaged a valve seat and smoking on start-up, oil consumption, and hard starting ensued.  Since I wasn't using the bikes during the winter, I decided to go ahead and rebuild the head.  It took pretty much all winter to get 'er done, but there was no rush, and the bike started up immediately and purred like a kitten (okay, a BIG kitten), so maybe it'll be good for another couple of years.

VIEWER DISCRETION ADVISED:
Engine guts

The tumbleweeds have been unbelievable this spring.  They have filled up the creeks, gullies, and fence corners.  This is going to be tremendous MESS if/when we get a gully-washer rain and all these weeds become flotsam.  Right now, when the wind blows, the weeds pile up and knock down fences.  I'm in constant fence repair mode.  And I don't think there's anything I can do about it.

Tumbleweeds along a fence (dark line running over horizon)

Weeds in a creek- the fence is buried

Weeds, weeds, weeds

Weeds on every corner

I think that more or less catches us up.  I've been spending too much time making short Facebook updates and instead of doing that, I think I'll re-focus on my blog and just link FB to it.  That way I can control my photos a little better, write longer posts, and non-FB friends can still read what's going on.

For now.... off to work on guitars and fix fences.